Better Plans
by saradonic
Summary: "Hey, look I didn't mean to upset you," "Shut it Danny! I'm just now realizing my boyfriend isn't all that into me, leave me alone to wallow." In which Danny and Mindy discuss Casey and Josh. Oh dear.


_Conveniently, I am ignoring the Christina development, not because it wasn't an amazing twist, but because it a) doesn't fit well with this story and b) didn't make me squeal and rewind as much as the rest of the brilliant episode did._

_Also, it's inspired loosely by Danny's hilarious and perfect response of "Nope." To Mindy's "I have a question about Josh."_

* * *

Things with Casey have been going well. Like, scary well. So much so that Mindy is starting to wonder if the tallest (and most religious ack) man she's ever dated might end up being _the one_. Guys like Casey believe in things like the institution of marriage, Mindy realizes, and he might even believe in things like that with her.

She certainly wouldn't be against it. Casey was brimming with amazing qualities, the topmost of which just might be the fact that he'd always stay faithful; something she really needed after the train wreck that was her relationship with Josh. God didn't exactly smile upon scumbag cheaters, now did he?

The thing is, Mindy was really, really beginning to fall for Casey; he was nice to her, treated her well and like, ethically speaking, he was about as kind and good as a human being came.

She was smitten, and she liked to make it known.

"One of the best things about Casey," Mindy is saying, leaning against the nurses counter and sighing down at Betsy, "is how secure he is in himself and our relationship. I mean most guys would get like, crazy pissed if some loser hit on their girlfriend right in front of them, but Casey was totally chill about it. The maturity of it all is like, so hot."

To say she was a little smug would be an understatement. By now Mindy has dated enough guys to know what kind of drama could possibly go down if some douche asks if he can get you a drink right in front of your boyfriend, and she knows Casey's serene, unruffled response was a rare and likeable one.

"Wow Dr. L," Betsy enthuses, raising her eyebrows and smiling, "that _is_ impressive. Every novella my grandma watches involves jealous men." She considers for a second, folding her fist beneath her chin, "Usually those situations end in murder though."

"Oh my god," Morgan begins, eyes widening. He had been standing a few feet behind Betsy with a file upside down and opened in front of his face, though not covering his eyes. He was supposed to be checking blood samples, but instead he was pretending not to have been listening to every word of their conversation. As far as eavesdroppers go, Morgan wasn't the best.

The mention of jealous murders had been too much for him though, and he looks as though he's about to add something ridiculous to Betsy's theory but Mindy interrupts him, brow creasing as she makes a face. "Okay," she holds up her hand as if to stop that train of thought.

"Like I was saying, the whole not worrying about other guys thing takes so much stress off a relationship. More guys should be like him."

"Preachers, do you mean?" Jeremy interrupts, breezing through the office. He hands a Manila folder to Betsy and then turns to examine Mindy, "because then the world would be a very boring place."

"Nope," Mindy smiles at him and tilts her head to the side, repeating her story for the third time, "I was just telling Morgan and Betsy about my date with Casey last night. Some random loser guy came up to me all flirty and Casey barely even batted an eyelash."

"Oh," Jeremy looks from Mindy to the nurses' station, unimpressed. "Well I never get jealous."

"Okay, well you're very unattached to every girl you sleep with, so that's completely different."

"Well I don't know," he raises his eyebrows and gives her a slightly condescending smile, which all things considered was pretty insulting in itself "As far as I know a little bit of jealousy is sort of an add-on to serious relationships."

"He's a _minister_," Mindy reminds him, "he's all about the calmness of heart and that other shit."

Jeremy only half-shrugs, as though he couldn't be deigned to participate in this conversation any longer and turns to Betsy, asking her some stupid question about his three o' clock.

"Rude," she comments pursing her lips, but shifts to examine her phone when she feels it buzzing in her hand.

_Got out as early as I could, be over with lunch in fifteen. Burritos?_

Mindy smiles softly down at her phone, tapping an answer back at lightning speed. She knew Casey was leading a very important youth seminar a good hour and a half away from the office. She'd asked him last night if he wanted to hang out with her today, but he'd said he wasn't sure he would have time. Apparently, he made sure that he did.

"Casey is literally the best," she sighs mostly to herself.

"His services are a little too party for church if you ask me," Danny adds, coming up behind them and fiddling with his stethoscope. His eyes meet Mindy's and he raises his eyebrows at her disgruntled expression.

"What?"

"No one asked you," Mindy reminds him, and then flips her hair over one shoulder and cocks her hip, "And anyway, I wasn't talking about his weird churchy rituals—"

"Offensive—"

"I mean as a boyfriend, he's perfect. He's polite, big-hearted, _giving_," at this she fixes Danny with a salacious wink, leaving no room for him to misinterpret her meaning. She grins when he makes a gagging noise, "And on top of all that, he never gets jealous."

Up to that point Danny had sort of just been rolling his eyes and barely listening, but the last bit of Mindy's tirade had him turning to face her, his expression disbelieving.

"Oh come on, no guy never gets jealous."

"Then no guy has ever been like Casey." Her smile brightens and she twists on her heel, finding an inarguable amount of joy in his discomfort and disbelief.

"No, I mean really," he paces behind her as she starts towards her office, "There's no such thing as a not jealous boyfriend. Some guys are more cooled off about it than others, but no one's just gunna be all fine and dandy with their girlfriend being all up on some guy—"

"Okay Danny, first of all, you don't know the situation. I wasn't _all up on some guy_. For your information, last night while we were out to dinner, a pretty good looking dude was totally coming onto me, and Casey barely batted an eyelash."

At this Danny's face becomes even more baffled. He holds up a hand, setting the other one on the counter, as if needing something to keep him balanced at such blasphemous words. Drama queen.

"Hang on, you're telling me some guy hit on you, right in front of this guy you're dating, and he didn't even care?"

"Hey," Mindy's eyebrows pinch, not liking his tone, "Of _course_ he cared—"

"Wait," Danny interrupts, he's on a roll Mindy realizes, and god knows that means he won't be shutting up anytime soon, "Isn't this the same guy who told you to meet up with your ex-boyfriend again?"

"Yes," she admits slowly, narrowing her eyes, "For _closure_."

"All I'm saying," Danny goes on as though Mindy had never spoken, "That's not really a normal thing. I mean Josh isn't just some ex-boyfriend, you know? He's the ex-boyfriend who screwed you over, who really _cheated_ on you—"

"Yeah, we get it!"

"—And like, what, still stalks all your social networking sites to keep tabs on where you are?" He splays his arms out and squints at her, shaking his head, "I mean what kind of perfect boyfriend would be okay with his girlfriend going near an ex-boyfriend like _that_?"

"I would never let my girlfriend anywhere near her ex," Morgan admits, piping up from behind the nurse's desk where he had been following the progression of their conversation not unlike a spectator at a tennis match. He shakes his head sadly when they both turn to stare at him and gestures to his belly, "The guy has a six-pack like you wouldn't believe—"

"You know what?" Mindy announces, holding up her hands and backing away from the lot of them, "This conversation is over. Casey has a far higher amount of maturity than any of you could ever really comprehend, so it's silly of me to stand here and try to explain it."

"Well it's not _that_ difficult to understand," Morgan mutters, looking down at a worried Betsy.

"And for your information," Mindy continues, talking over him and addressing the room at large, "People in this place are way too into my love life. Cool it, you guys!"

She spins on her heel and marches off toward her office, ignoring Danny's exasperation of "you have got to be kidding me" and not stopping until she reaches her door and slams it behind her.

She has about twelve and a half seconds for her mind to fret and worry about what everyone had to say about her relationship with Casey before Danny enters behind her, not even bothering to knock.

"Out Danny!"

"Hey, you're the one who brought up this ridiculous situation, now I'm invested. Tell me how this whole no-jealously thing works."

"It's not—god!" she sputters and walks behind her desk, although she doesn't take a seat. She finds she likes being in Danny's eye line. "It's not a "thing", okay? He just doesn't get jealous! Jealous is a sign of insecurity you know, so that just goes to show you _how secure in our relationship my boyfriend is_!"

Near the end of her spiel, her voice quickly approaches the territory of screechy, but she can barely find it in herself to care. On the outside, to Danny, she may seem like she's just annoyed the entire office is on the case of a man who would suitably fit the definition of _saint_, but on the inside Mindy is losing it. She tracks back anytime the subject of another man had come up between Casey and herself, and desperately tries to remember any semblance of uneasiness on Casey's handsome, aloof face.

"Alright, calm down," Danny tells her, fisting his hands on his hips. Mindy can just make out the beginnings of perspiration marks seeping softly through the fabric of his light dress shirt and finds she isn't nearly as repulsed by it as she was even six months ago. "Tell me what happened last night," he encourages, seating himself of the chair before her desk.

She mimics him, sitting down and sighing long-sufferingly.

"It wasn't a big deal," she insists, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back in her chair, "We were just at one of those cute bar-slash-restaurant things and just as Casey was _gentlemanly_ holding the chair our for me to sit, some wise guy um." She stops herself, searching for the right words.

And okay, sort of enjoying Danny's unwavering attention and suspense.

"What?" He demands, "What did he do?"

"He just like. He made a very um, _unnecessary_ comment on my, you know. Backside."

Danny squints, tilting his head.

"And," Mindy clears her throat and continues halting after another second, "How he'd like to _get to know it better_."

"Woah, okay—"

"You asked!"

"So," Danny scoots to the edge of his seat, so close now to Mindy's desk he's nearly leaning over it, "Some guy verbally assaults you and Jesus Christ Super Star has nothing to say?"

"After I told him to get lost and he wouldn't take the hint, Casey very politely asked him to leave us alone," Mindy tells him, more than a little snooty, "And not every guy is going to start throwing punches and threatening bodily harm every time someone hits on their girlfriend. Some men are above that!"

"Hey, okay," he sits back a little, sounding defensive, "I'm not saying he should like, beat up on the guy, but come on, didn't you feel a little violated?"

For the first time in what seems like hours, a bout of silence falls between them. Mindy stares straight at Danny, pressing her lips together and wringing her hands together in her lap, away from his intense watchful eyes.

"Well," She says after a long moment, voice tiny. She looks away from him and then back again, struggling for words, and then realizing, "Yeah, actually I did."

The guy commented on her ass for god's sake, and okay she gets it, she has a lot of ass, but she doesn't need the general population making crude commentary on it!

"Exactly, the minister should have said _something_." Danny looks smug; the way he always looks when he's been proven right, but at the moment Mindy cannot even find it in herself to hate him for it.

"He really should have," she hears herself agree, but her voice sounds far away and her eyes start going slightly out of focus, blurring his image in front of her.

"Uh, Mindy?" Vaguely she registers that it's Danny, that the soft smirk has been wiped clean off his face and has been replaced with furrow-browed concern. But she hardly notices, her body is still trying to catch up with her brain, her brain that is adding up what everyone has said and what she herself has noticed and is coming to a very disturbing conclusion.

"Hey, Min?"

Easily, she ignores him, thinking back to side-conversations she'd had with Casey, his oftentimes cool and indifferent outlook things that would normally send most boyfriends screeching and throwing punches. She'd cast his lack of jealously off as a religious thing, as a maturity thing, as a confidence thing. Wasn't it just possible he believed and trusted her one hundred percent? That he'd never felt the vile worms of possessiveness squirming in his gut because he knew she'd never do anything with anyone else?

Or had she really been mistaking his composure? Was it possible that Casey just didn't…just wasn't…did he maybe not care as much about her?

She thinks about the night a few months ago when she'd asked him if he would avenge her hypothetical murder. Mindy thinks a part of her always knew a minister wouldn't be all gung-go about the idea, but was she not worth sinning for? Didn't he _like_ her enough, or even feel protective enough of her to even pretend to entertain the idea?

"Oh…my god..."

"Mindy! Hey!" It's as though she comes crashing back down to earth, and the first thing she sees is Danny's face hovering not four inches away from hers, his thick, dark eyebrows dipping dangerously deep. For the first time, Mindy notices how very long and curly Danny's eyelashes are; they tangle together near the corners of his eyes.

"What the hell, you totally spaced out on me."

"Oh my god, Danny." Mindy mentally berates herself for the telling catch in her voice. She clears her throat and blinks away the water in her eyes even as Danny stands, reaching out to her with a soft "hey, come on."

On instinct Mindy twists away. She stands too, and expelling a great number of deep and shaky breaths as she begins pacing the room, muttering _oh my god, oh my god_ all the while and contemplating how long it would take to kick Danny out so she could properly curl up on the floor and wallow.

"Yo," she says suddenly, turning to face him and glad for the renewed fervor of her voice. She points a shaky finger towards her closed door, "Get out!"

"Hey, look," Danny has an odd hunch to his shoulders Mindy hasn't seen very many times before. His mouth is set in that soft, downturned way it often gets set in when he worries about something causing complications while he's extracting a baby. He looks even, Mindy would venture to say, like he regrets bringing up all these awful ideas about Casey, but that's where Mindy stops herself—Danny would never feel bad for being right about something, especially if it only had to do with her. "I didn't mean to upset you." He claims.

"Shut it Danny!" She stomps towards him and reaches for her door handle, wanting him out, "I'm just now realizing my boyfriend isn't all that into me, leave me alone to wallow!"

The words sound even worse out loud than they did in her head, and Mindy has to physically stop herself for breaking down in front of him.

Danny for his part gapes a little, as though he can't believe she'd actually said it.

"Come on," he begins weakly, "That wasn't the point of that. And I'm sure it's not that he isn't into you, it's like you said, some...times guys don't, you know, get jealous or…yeah."

"Oh my god! Stop trying to make me feel better, you suck at it!"

There, a flash of hurt across his eyes so brief and so fast, Mindy would have missed it if she weren't looking right at him when it had occurred. Her words were mean, and also untrue. Danny was actually really good at making her feel better; he made her feel better all the time. Not like, today specifically, but generally speaking—

"Look, it isn't my fault," Danny tells her, eyes clouding over with annoyance, "That you date the worst guys possible—"

"Casey is _literally_ a minister!"

"He doesn't protect you! Shouldn't he be a little more concerned when your modesty is being threatened? Isn't that a religious scruple or something? He should—"

"I know!" Mindy yells back, surprising him enough to make him clamp his mouth shut and blink twice. "I know," she repeats, quieter, sadder, "It…I had been kind of ignoring it, or like putting it to the side or making excuses for it I guess, but you're right Danny. He should be, if not jealous, then at least protective."

"Well,"

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she admits in a warble, talking over him, "there is no legitimate, rational reason for me to be so upset over this, and if I use this shallow reason to breakup with him, I think I can accurately label myself as the worst person _ever _and—

Her phone buzzes on her desk, and Mindy looks at it with a sinking heart. She groans, swinging her door open and poking her head outside to where Casey is standing with a grease-stained bag in one hand and looking positively delectable, intermittently chatting with Morgan and typing away on his phone.

"God," she groans again, when he sees her and grins, waving, "What am I going to do?" She licks her lips and turns back to Danny, now standing just a few feet beside her, nearly outside her door. "I don't want to break up with him," she admits, worming her bottom lip between her teeth, "I love being with him. I just want him to care more, like for him to react to _something_—"

"Here," Danny says softly, his voice little more than a murmur. He sets his hands on her upper arms and Mindy furrows her brow, confused.

"What are you doing?" She asks, her voice only the tiniest bit breathless _thank-you-very-much_. When she meets his stare her heart hammers thunderously in the cage of his ribs to see him gazing at her with those crazy intense eyes.

"Danny,"

He cuts her off, swooping down and pressing his lips to hers with such aching precision, Mindy doesn't think it's her fault at all the way her body just automatically arches up to meet his.

_Oh my god, _Mindy thinks like a screech in her head, even as Danny moves his mouth, soft, warm, close-lippedly agonizing over her own set of lips yielding like butter beneath his. She shifts beneath him, even as she hears movement somewhere outside of the bubble that has wrapped itself around them, she moves to place her hands on his neck, tries to open her mouth to deepen the kiss and is surprised and disappointed when Danny's hands shoot down to stop her, when his mouth remains closed.

_Why_? She wants to scream at him, _whywhywhywhy_—

She's shocked by how badly she wants to curl her tongue around his, taste every corner of his mouth, learn every ridge of his teeth, map out her own horizon in the cavern that is Danny Castellano's talented mouth—

And then, just as quickly as he'd descended, Danny separates from her.

He gives her half a lopsided grin, his face pink and his lips softly swollen. He has just enough time to rumble, voice deep and husky, "If that doesn't work, I don't know what the hell will."

Before all six feet and four inches of Casey is rearing up to them, angry and sputtering.

* * *

_On a side note, I am well aware that by next week's episode (yay!) this whole Casey-is-an-uncaring-unprotective-boyfriend thing may be totally disproved, but I am posting this despite that fact because the idea is too tempting to pass up._

_Tell me what you think!_


End file.
